xml-dev - Re: "View Structure"

["Karl F. Best" <kbest@Adobe.COM>]

Jon Bosak wrote:
 
> Because every well-formed XML document describes a tree, however, it's
> also possible to have a "View Structure" option that would give you a
> default navigable view of the document as a tree -- like the default
> Jumbo behavior.  This view would allow you to expand and collapse the
> structure and it would show attribute nodes that could be opened to
> see the attributes on each element.  It could use a file manager
> metaphor, like Jumbo, or it could use the plus-button/minus-button
> interface used for most dynamic browser TOCs, or it could use
> something else; the point is that it would be trivially autogenerated
> on request, show the document in XML terms, and provide a commonly
> understood base view independent of the application interface supplied
> for a given document type that would always be available to people
> trying to understand or debug an XML document.  "View Structure" would
> presumably *not* use different type sizes, etc., but concentrate
> instead on exposing the guts of the document, so I would expect the
> display generated by character-mode browsers to look roughly the same
> as the display generated by the fancy graphics-mode browsers.

An excellent example of this sort of view is found in FrameMaker+SGML's
Structure View. It's useful for navigation, is easily expanded and
contracted, and displays attributes too. 

(I loved this view even before I joined Adobe, honest!)

</karl>

======================================================================
Karl F. Best                                        voice 408-536-6531
Manager, Frame Developer Support                    fax   408-536-6883
Adobe Systems  -  San Jose, CA                         kbest@adobe.com
======================================================================

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